Jonathan Crane and the Violent Dance
by Twinings
Summary: Sherry was new. Sherry was beautiful. Sherry was perfect.
1. Chapter 1

This was written for the FFAFFA at Ask the Squishykins. Prompts: Jonathan Crane and the Violent Dance; Sherry Squires; Jonathan Crane tries to feel good about himself with a mirror.

Triggers will be noted in the chapters in which they occur. Potentially spoilery trigger warnings will be noted at the_ end_ of the chapter.

Potential triggers in this chapter include mentions of racism, bullying, sexist high school dudes, and homophobia.

A note about the homophobic slur used in this chapter: It's super goddamn unacceptable and should never be used. But I feel that it is appropriate to the situation. Teenagers are awful.

* * *

Jonathan Crane first met Sherry Squires at the homecoming dance at the end of September his first year of high school. Sherry, like half of the freshman class at Arlen High, had gone to Spook Hill Elementary and Alexander Stephens Junior High, while Jonathan had been stuck in the hellhole that was Arlen Public School. But there was only one high school serving both towns, so his class size had doubled, which...honestly, didn't really change anything for him. Except that, for the first time in his life, a pretty girl had caught his interest.

There were other pretty girls in his class, of course. But they all _knew_ him. They had all insulted him at some time or another, behind his back or, more often, to his face. They had all been there for every humiliating thing that had ever happened to them. Half of them had been involved in one incident or another.

But Sherry was different. Sherry was new.

He had been aware of her almost since the beginning of the year. She was on the pep squad, and in the drama club, and even though she was a stranger to half the ninth grade, her election to the homecoming court had been a landslide victory.

It was her smile, Jonathan thought, that dazzling, movie-star grin that made you feel so _special_ when she blasted you with it.

Sherry had smiled at him once, at the first pep rally of the year. Jonathan had been sitting in the front row of the bleachers, a strategic location because it meant that not only could he be among the first to leave when all the claptrap was concluded, but he also wouldn't have too far to fall if someone shoved him on his way out. It also meant that he had a perfect view of the football team, the pep squad, and the cheerleaders, but none of that had crossed his mind at all. He'd been trying to focus on Algebra, because he hadn't yet dared to tell his granny that he'd made a _C_ on the first test, and he'd been hoping he could bring his grade up to something more respectable before she found out. But, his concentration shot from Dylan's attempts to jab him in the kidneys with a pencil, Jonathan had looked up just in time to see a lovely brunette run out in front of the other girls, a baton spinning in her hand.

The baton had slipped through her fingers, and Jonathan had felt a moment of pity for the clumsy girl who had probably only been allowed to perform as part of some cruel joke at her expense. But instead of letting it clatter to the floor, she'd spun around, bending at the waist and tucking her arms in tight to increase her momentum, and snatched it out of the air just inches from the ground. She'd tossed it up in the air, spinning around again, and caught it above her head.

He'd stared, fascinated, as she'd twirled and tossed and spun, the other girls just making a pretty backdrop for the clear star of the show. It had been like magic, even though intellectually he'd known that the baton was nothing more than a kind of lever, with her fingers as the fulcrum providing angular momentum through carefully applied torque. It still required phenomenal coordination and awareness of her center of gravity. Jonathan never woud have been able to do it.

At the end of the routine, she'd flung the baton to the ground, let it bounce back up into her hand, and swept a dramatic bow to her audience. Then, as if sensing his admiration (but no, that was silly, there was no scientific evidence of extrasensory perception) she'd tipped her head back and looked _right at him_. And smiled.

He'd loved her ever since.

Now she was standing just outside the crush in the school gym, looking ethereal in a white party dress, with a homecoming princess tiara perched, slightly off center, atop the complicated swirls of her hair.

Jonathan hadn't seen her accept the crown. He had spent the evening working as a parking attendant for the game, which was the only reason he'd been able to afford a ticket to the dance. But he'd known she was going to win.

Now, standing in the corner in a secondhand suit that he'd spent hours sprucing up with supplies filched from Granny's sewing kit (in the dim light, you could hardly see the patches) he wanted to go over and congratulate her. He could ask her to dance-he'd been practicing, alone in the root cellar, with dance steps he'd learned from a book. She would say yes, of course, because she was not like other girls. They would talk while they danced, and they would find out that they had so much in common that it just made sense for them to be together. She would admire his intellect, and she would be the only one to get his sense of humor, and...

His fantasy extended no farther than that. He coudln't imagine what it would be like to have a _girlfriend_.

Sherry wasn't dating anyone, as far as he knew. That made things easier. Most of the couples were out on the dance floor together, or else they had snuck out to the parking lot or behind the bleachers to paw at each other like raccoons in heat. But Sherry was talking to some of the drama girls, two from Spook Hill and one from Arlen. Jenny, Megan, and Miranda.

Megan didn't seem like the kind of girl who would be friends with someone like Sherry. She was a squat, carrotty-redhead with oversized glasses and a nose more prominent even than Jonathan's. He only knew her because she was in his English class, and kept awkwardly trying to shoehorn in discussions of _Measure for Measure_ instead of the assigned play, _Romeo and Juliet_.

Jenny fit in better. She was long-legged and stunning, and supposedly spent five hours a day studying with a professional ballet company in Atlanta. She was going out with Bo or Beau-there were six guys with that name in their grade alone, and Jonathan could never keep straight who spelled it which way. This Bo was on the football team, and their dating had caused a minor scandal because, apparently, miscegenation was still taboo in Georgia.

And then there was _Miranda_. She was like a human Darci doll, right down to the flip in her perfect golden-blonde hair. She was the kind of girl who could have gotten by on looks alone, but, frustratingly, she was also going to be his closest competition for valedictorian. And she didn't deserve that honor. The grades, yes. Even Jonathan couldn't deny that she'd worked hard to maintain her grade point average. But everyone knew it was Miranda's fault that Jewish girl had to transfer to private school in seventh grade, and it was Miranda who had started the rumor that Ashley Wyatt was pregnant when they'd been fighting for the lead in the Christmas pageant. There was nothing Miranda wouldn't do to make herself look good, and she did _not_ deserve to be held up as the best Arlen had to offer.

Jonathan sincerely hoped that Sherry was just spending time with Miranda because she hadn't yet learned what kind of person she _really_ was.

Jonathan walked up to the girls during a lull in their conversation, tugging self-consciously on his shirtsleeves, which were just a litle too short. Miranda looked at him the way she always did, as if he were something stuck to the bottom of her shoe and she couldn't quite decide what she'd stepped in. He ignored her. Megan gave him a cordial nod, Jenny a puzzled but not hostile frown, Sherry a look of polite attentiveness. He looked at all three with what he hoped was a pleasant smile. Sherry looked...disturbed.

"I just wanted to-congratulate you-you look-very-regal." He barely managed to get the words out, his mouth suddenly dry. Sherry's eyebrows were slowly creeping toward her hairline. Jenny stifled a laugh.

"Do I know you?" Sherry asked, with exaggerated slowness, as if she thought he were some kind of halfwit. Jonathan straightned, surreptitiously wiping his damp palms on the sides of his pants.

"I'm Jonathan. I'm in your English class. And Algebra. And Social Studies."

Miranda didn't bother to stifle her giggles. Jonathan shot her a glare, which only made her laugh harder. Jenny snickered. Megan coughed the way people did when they were trying to cover their amusement.

Sherry smiled. It was not her movie star smile, but his heartrate picked up just the same.

"Jonathan...did you _want_ something?"

"I, um..." He should say something to her. He _had_ to say something, or she was going to think there was something seriously wrong with him.

"Hey." Jonathan flinched at the sound of the familiar male voice. "What are you doing with my girl?"

Two very _large_ forms flanked Jonathan, to the girls' obvious pleasure. On his left was Dylan, who had been getting away with stuffing Jonathan into lockers since the third grade. On his right, Bo, who he had never even met before, although of course everyone knew who he was. He was on the _varsity_ football team, which was apparetly an impressive accomplishment for a freshman.

"I wasn't aware that women were considered personal property," Jonathan said, trying not to flinch again as they both pressed in closer. Dylan clenched his hand into a fist, which was his response pretty much any time Jonathan used a word with more than two syllables.

"Is this guy bothering you ladies?" asked Bo. He had an affable-sounding voice, like a politician or a used car salesman. Sherry seemed to like it. She gave him her special smile, which prompted Jenny to show off her dimples and flutter her long eyelashes. Jonathan glanced at Miranda, but she only had eyes for Dylan. At least she was loyal.

"Get this creep away from us," she said sweetly.

Dylan's hand gripped Jonathan's upper arm, hard enough to bruise. If he was lucky, that would be the worst of it.

He was never that lucky.

"I told you never to look at my girl," Dylan growled. He didn't sound nearly as amiable as Bo, but Jonathan knew he could be perfectly charming around authority figures-it was how he maintained his squeaky-clean reputation-so there was no use looking for help.

"I wasn't looking at _your girl_," said Jonathan, with a derisive glance at Miranda. She looked like she wanted to punch him, or at least have Dylan do it for her.

"Why not? You saying you don't like the way she looks? Are you _insulting_ my _girlfriend_?"

They had been through this before. Jonathan was supposed to backpedal and say that Miranda was gorgeous, thus proving that he _had_ been looking at her. Then Dylan would have an excuse to shove his head in a toilet.

He might as well skip to the end.

"What's to look at?" He deliberately looked Miranda up and down, then shrugged as if utterly bored.

"Fucking faggot!" Dylan nearly yanked his arm out of its socket as he swung him around toward the door. A second later, Bo caught up and grabbed him by the other arm. He was strong, but his grip was indifferent. He was only getting involved to impress the girls.

A fresh burst of giggles broke out as Bo and Dylan dragged Jonathan away.

"Did you see what he was _wearing_? Who would actually leave the house looking like that?"

"That's why we call him the Scarecrow."

"Scarecrow? He looks like a _serial killer_."

Jonathan stopped trying to resist and simply let his feet slide over the vinyl floor. They didn't care if he walked or not, anyway.


	2. Chapter 2

Trigger warning: This is the violent chapter. If you don't want to read about violent bullying, feel free to skip to the next chapter.

* * *

Bo bumped the door open with his hip, and they hauled him out into the balmy night. Jonathan stayed limp until Dylan turned slightly away to kick the door shut behind him. Then, too suddenly for him to anticipate it, Jonathan stomped on his ankle with all the force he could muster and jerked his arm free. Bo tried to keep his grip on the other side, but all he had a good hold of was Jonathan's jacket, and it only took a sharp tug for the whole thing to tear away, leaving him with a ragged strip of tweed flapping against his elbow as he ran.

Dylan had never been particularly fast. Jonathan experienced a moment of fleeting hope as he rounded the corner of the gym and came up on the back of the cafeteria. If he could get away from them early, they would give up and go back inside to play knights in shining armor for their girlfriends. And for Sherry, but there was nothing he could do about that. He comforted himself with the fact that only three of the four girls had been openly mocking him as he'd been dragged away. Since he'd recognized Miranda's voice, the chances were one in three that Sherry hadn't been one of the other two. Maybe she didn't condone-

Jonathan found out why Bo Briggs was a varsity linebacker when the other boy's massive weight hit him right between the shoulder blades, knocking him flat. Bo's arm wrapped around his waist, pinning his arms so he couldn't even break his fall. His head clunked against the side of the dumpster, and he fell to the ground, too dazed to struggle. Not that he could, anyway, with Bo sprawled out on top of him. You had to be big to be a linebacker, and Bo was _big_, with biceps bigger around than Jonathan's thighs.

Apparently, linebackers also knew how to tackle.

Dylan came pounding down the asphalt, cheering on Bo's athletic prowess. Jonathan groaned faintly.

Bo peeled Jonathan off the ground and held him up, giving him a second to catch his breath. _Nice of him,_ Jonathan thought irrationally.

"You fucking piece of shit," Dylan said. He was really laying on the profanity for the new guy's benefit, trying to establish his place in the new pecking order. Ridiculous. "You need to learn to leave decent people alone."

Bo said nothing. He had been nearly silent the entire time, Jonathan realized. He might just be dumb muscle, the type who would go along with anything a stronger personality told him to do, but Jonathan didn't get that impression. More likely, he was confident enough in his role as the football hero that he didn't _have_ to verbally and physically assault someone half his size just to feel like a big man. If that was the case, then without any personal stake in the matter, he would be satisfied with a minimum of violence, just enough to drive home the "lesson." Jonathan could deal with that. It was Dylan who would not be satisfied.

"_Decent_ people?" Jonathan echoed quietly. "I don't see any _decent_ people here. _Decent_ people aren't afraid to fight fair. Two against one, Dylan? Do I scare you that much?"

He had expected that dig to provoke Dylan into a flurry of violence, while making them both feel bad enough about themselves to leave him alone after they'd knocked him down a time or two. But, to his alarm, it was Bo who moved, pinning his arms behind his back and tilting him back slightly so that his torso presented an inviting target.

Jonathan tipped his head back to look Bo in the eye.

"What did I ever do to _you_?" He sounded pathetic. He was _whining_, which he despised, and which, moreover, was not going to do him any good. Bo looked down at him, as blandly dispassionate as if they had been discussing the political climate in Armenia.

"You bothered my girlfriend. Fuck you."

Still looking at Bo, Jonathan didn't see Dylan draw back his fist. He knew how to take a punch to minimize the damage, but not if he didn't see it coming. Dylan's fist slammed into his solar plexus with the force of...a fist, hell, he couldn't think of metaphors, there was nothing comparable. The air rushed out of him and refused to come back in. His legs wouldn't support his weight, but that was all right because Bo's grip hadn't slacked in the least. He wouldn't have the comfort of lying on the ground, curled in a ball of misery, until they were good and done with him.

With his eyes tightly shut, as if that could squeeze out the pain, he couldn't see the next blow coming, either. Dylan hit him again in the same spot, driving a strangled grunt from somewhere deep inside him as tears started streaming from his eyes. He kicked out blindly in front of him and connected with something, but not hard enough to make a difference.

With the third blow, Jonathan lost control of his insides and heaved up most of what he'd eaten for dinner. Bo let him go with a startled laugh. He hit the ground hard on one knee and, disoriented, tipped sideways until his shoulder was pressing into the ground.

Dylan snapped a kick at his chest that knocked him onto his back. Jonathan tried to brace himself for the next attack, but it didn't come.

"That was your own damn fault." Bo's voice. Laughing. Jonathan managed to open his eyes and saw that Bo had put himself between the two of them and was holding Dylan back by the shoulders. Dylan was splattered with vomit. There was a part of Jonathan that was pleased with that. There was a much bigger part of him that was terrified of the fury evident on his tormentor's face.

And there was another part of him that noted Bo's reaction to Dylan's unbridled rage. He was amused. Not because of the potential ramifications for Jonathan, but because it signaled a shift in the social structure. Dylan was losing face, and if he didn't regain control of the situation, he would never again be the leader he had been before the merge with Spook Hill. Everyone from Arlen had already settled into their roles as his followers, but Bo was a leader himself. After this, he could make Dylan his subordinate. It didn't matter that there was no one around to witness the incident except the weird kid they were beating up. Bo would know, and Dylan would know.

And Dylan was too out of control to recognize the situation, much less try to salvage it. Jonathan was in too much pain to move much, but he did manage a smirk.

"Get off me! He's gotta be taught a lesson!" Dylan shouted. He tried to run at Jonathan. Bo shoved him back. "He's trash!"

"Sure," Bo said calmly.

"A worthless piece of _trash_!"

"Yeah. And what do we do with trash?"

What? No! Desperately, Jonathan tried to lever himself off the ground. His arms almost gave out under him. He grasped the side of the dumpster for support, managed to get one foot under him. Then a hand grabbed him by the hair and yanked him back.

"Stop! Hmmp!" Dylan's hand released his hair to clamp down over his mouth instead. His arm tightened around Jonathan's shoulders as Bo lifted his feet off the ground. Jonathan flailed and squirmed, beating his fists against whatever flesh he could find, trying to kick at Bo's face, for all the good it did him. His glasses slipped off, and the ground became a blur beneath his face. He bucked and slipped and, for a second, actually thought he was free. But then the arm that had been wrapped around his shoulders tightened around his throat instead. Frantic now, Jonathan clawed at Dylan's arm, with no effect other than that the hand covering his mouth moved to seize him by the elbow instead. They didn't care, they weren't paying attention, they were going to _kill_ him-

"Oops!" Dylan said, and slammed his head into the dumpster. Then his grip shifted, and Jonathan sucked in one quick breath before they threw him, unceremoniously, facefirst, in with the garbage.

Preoccupied with breathing, Jonathan hadn't thought to close his mouth. He scrambled up, spitting coffee grounds and scrubbing frantically at his mouth, but whatever he'd landed in was all over his hands.

They were both laughing, Dylan with a forced note that said he wasn't finished yet. Jonathan tried to turn around so he could climb out, but the piles of muck slid under him and he fell into it again.

"That really stinks," said Bo. "People shouldn't leave these things open like this."

"No, don't!" Jonathan cried as they reached up together to close the lid on him. He put his arms up to stop it, but of course their combined weight was far too much for him to resist. The lid slammed down.

Jonathan tried to stifle a sob, but it echoed in the dark. The air was thick with the stench of week-old garbage. His stomach churned and, before he could stop himself, he threw up for the second time that night, down his own front this time.

He could hear them laughing out there. He shoved against the dumpster lid, but they must have still been leaning on it. It didn't budge. He pounded on it with both hands. Nothing.

"Okay, very funny!" His voice wobbled pitifully, beyond his control. "You got me! You win! You can let me out now!" There was no response. He slammed his fists against the steel lid. "Let me _out_!"

"We should go back inside," said Bo. "Well, _you_ should go change your pants."

Yes! Yes, yes, yes! Go back inside, go back, go away, go away, go away...

There was a _thump_ that rocked the whole dumpster. The lid bowed in under the weight of whatever they had put up there to hold it shut, a rock or a cinderblock, it didn't matter, he couldn't _move_ it, he was trapped and they were _leaving_ him there-

"No!" he screamed. "No, please, I'm sorry, please let me out, you _have_ to let me out, please, I'm sorry, I'll never do it again, I swear I won't, I swear to _God_, I'm _sorry_, just please, _please_-" He tried to push it open with his shoulder, but his foot slipped, and he fell.

His struggle to get back up was worse than useless. An avalanche of filth, dislodged by his aimless thrashing, tumbled down on top of him. He managed to push most of it away, only for another ple to slide down on him from the other side. Banana peel over his mouth, slimy plastic wrap against his ear, chunks of spoiled milk up his nose, a thousand half-eaten lunches burying his legs. He gagged, as much from fear as from the stink and the slime, but there was nothing left to bring up. He couldn't breathe, he couldn't move, he was dizzy, he was lightheaded, he was trapped, he was going to suffocate, he was going to pass out, no one was going to come looking for him, the garbage collectors were going to have no idea there was an unconscious human being in the dumpster, they were going to dump him into a trash compacter and crush him into a cube and incinerate the remains-

"Help me," he moaned, and got a banana peel between his teeth for the effort.


	3. Chapter 3

Warnings: bullying, self-hate, ableist urban legends, anti-Catholic bigotry, homophobia

* * *

"Help me," he moaned, and got a banana peel between his teeth for the effort. It didn't matter if he called for help. No one was going to hear him, and even if they did hear him, they wouldn't care, and-

"Is somebody in there?"

He was hallucinating, obviously, but that knowledge didn't stop his heart from lurching with false hope. He banged his fist against the steel wall, and imagined that he heard a gasp, a grunt, a scrape aganst the metal, a crash against the ground. Then there was light and air, and maybe he wasn't hallucinating after all. He reached for the lip of the thing and dragged himself up, didn't care that the rough metal tore the skin off his palms. He meant to swing his leg over and ease himself down, but he lost his grip entirely and pitched over the edge, right into the arms of Megan, the girl from Spook Hill.

"Holy Toledo!" she yelped as they crashed to the ground in a tangle of limbs and lace. Jonathan shoved himself away from her, heard a loud _rip_ and her cry of dismay as part of her frilly skirt came away with him. All he could think to do was run away, but he barely made it to his hands and knees before he collapsed. Noisy sobs tore their way out of him. He couldn't hold them back, any more than he could force his body to stand up.

"Are you _okay_?" Her hand on his shoulder. He tore his arm away.

"Don't _touch_ me!" He was disgusting, she wouldn't want to touch him, she wouldn't want to have anything to do with him unless it was to somehow make all this even worse.

She rocked back on her heels, but she was still there, watching him as he lay on the ground, shaking and crying and hating himself.

"Do you want me to call nine-one-one?" she asked.

"_No_!" He wasn't hurt, not really. He was just being a baby, a coward, a weenie, a wimp, everything they had ever said about him, and a doctor was, as his granny had told him many times, an extravagance they could not afford.

"Should I get someone to pick you up?"

"I can pick myself-" Belatedly, he realized she was talking about getting him a ride home. "I'm fine." To prove it, he pushed himself upright. He didn't try to stand, not certain his legs would hold him yet, but kneeling was a good start. He was steadier, now that the reaction was wearing off, and his breathing was coming back under his control. If she would just go away and leave him alone, he could put this whole humiliating incident behind him.

"You haven't seen my glasses, have you?" Megan asked. "I kind of lost them when we fell."

Well, that was a tactful way of putting it, but Jonathan didn't care to respond in kind.

"I haven't _seen_ anything." Without his own glasses, he was as blind as a bat.

Megan chuckled. Jonathan felt his shoulders tense.

"_What?"_

"Oh, was that not a joke? I'm sorry. I just thought...because your glasses are...I'm sorry."

Her apology sounded genuine. Jonathan tried to think how he was supposed to respond, but he hadn't the faintest idea. He stared at the ground, and-ah. There was a pair of glasses lying not far from him, in the shadow of the dumpster. He picked them up. The frames were large, plastic, hand-painted to look like the wings of _Euploea mulciber_. Or maybe it was just an abstract pattern that coincidentally resembled a South Asian butterfly's wings.

"Here." He thrust them in her general direction, and managed to hit her in the face just as she leaned in toward him.

"Ow. These must be yours, then."

Face flaming with embarrassment, he slipped his own wire-frame glasses back on, and felt marginally better as the world came back into focus. They were bent, but miraculously unbroken.

He looked at the girl, intending to thank her and send her on her way. Her eyes were ringed with black streaks, and the rest of her makeup had rubbed away in places, revealing a freckle here, a pimple there, and red and white splotches all over. She had been crying.

"I'm-sorry," he said. "About your dress." And about harrassing her and her friends, and knocking her down, and covering her with garbage, and having a hysterical episode in front of her, and hitting her in the face with her own glasses. The dress seemed the safest item to mention. She plucked at a soiled ruffle hanging from her skirt by a thread, and sighed.

"Yeah, well. I'll make a better one next time."

"You _made_ that?" And she wasn't angry that he'd destroyed it?

She mistook his suspicion for admiration.

"I'm mostly into costume design, but I thought I'd give fashion a try for the dance. Kind of _Pretty in Pink_, you know?"

Before he'd gotten to it, the dress had looked very much like a costume of an upside-down lemon cupcake, but he kept that thought to himself.

"If that's your idea of pink, you're never going to make it as a fashion designer," he said instead.

"Wow, okay," she said with a little laugh. "I'm going to go to the bathroom and clean up. Want to walk me there?"

"No," he said sharply. So that was her game, was it? She thought she could get him to walk back through the gym so everyone could see what a pathetic loser he was, so all her giggly little friends could point and laugh. So Sherry could think even less of him than she undoubtedly already did.

Then again, Megan was looking almost as ragged as he was, and someone had made her cry...

"I was thinking I'd use the one by my locker. There won't be anybody in there right now."

"That's because the main building is locked," he reminded her.

"Sure, the _doors_ are. There's a window in the chem lab with a busted lock. Don't tell Mr. Cranston."

"How would you know that?" he asked.

"I'm the one who broke it. Are you coming?" She held out her hand to help him up.

Jonathan braced himself against the side of the dumpster and got to his feet that way instead. Her motives _might_ be altruistic, as absurd as the notion seemed, but he did not want her hands on him.

She walked off toward the chemistry lab, and Jonathan hobbled along behind her. He was hardly trembling at all now, but the lessening of adrenaline meant that he was really starting to feel all the persistent aches that were going to leave him incapacitated by morning. He would have preferred to hide his limp, but keeping his face impassive was already too much strain. He was on the verge of breaking down again. It would have to be enough for his pride that her face was turned away.

True to her word, the chemistry lab window opened easily at a touch. Megan clambered inside, then held it open for Jonathan while he did the same. How he made it inside without her help he would never know, but he did.

It was eerie to be in the school building at night, in the dark, alone with a girl he hardly knew. The thump-thump of the bass from the music in the gym was a steady sound almost beyond the range of his hearing. Giggling nervously, Megan edged closer to Jonathan as they made their way past the lab tables to the door. He slowed to let her go ahead of him.

The hallway was dark, lit only by a small window at each end, casting weird shadows on the lockers from the streetlights outside. Jonathan tried not to think about the escaped lunatic with a hook for a hand who had supposedly stalked and murdered a group of Arlen students in the '50s. He wondered if Megan knew that story.

They parted ways at the boys' bathroom, and Jonathan couldn't say he was sorry to see the last of her. She really hadn't done anything wrong-she had been very nice, in fact-but he needed to be alone, and he didn't know how to handle _nice_.

He turned on the bathroom light and locked the door securely behind him. Then his legs gave out and he crumpled to the floor, arms wrapped tight around his body, knees pressed against his forehead. He didn't cry this time, just lay there, breathing hard, riding out the last waves of emotion. It didn't matter, he told himself. It didn't matter what they did to him. He wouldn't be in Arlen forever. Just four more years. Closer to three and a half, now. He could hold on until then. Once high school was over, everything would be okay.

He used the sink to pull himself up, and surveyed himself in the mirror. His face, under the filth, was pale, and he looked stricken, but not shattered. Jonathan stared hard into his own eyes, trying to project an air of dignity. It didn't quite work, but he was getting there.

"It's going to be all right," he told himself firmly. "It's. Going. To. Be. All. Right." It was. It had to be.

He folded his glasses carefully and set them aside, and turned both the hot and cold taps as far as they would go. It took some contorting to get his head under the faucet, but with a lot of scrubbing and a liberal amount of soap from the dispenser, he managed to make his face and hair look almost presentable.

He stripped off his torn sport coat and balled it up in the garbage can. It wasn't salvageable. His button-down shirt was too badly stained in the back to be worn in public without something over it, but it would be fine to get him home. His pants were the worst, though. They had been torn down one side at some point without his noticing, and now that leg was sticky with blood. He could take his pants off and try to wash them in the sink, but he had no way to dry them. He might as well just wait until he got home.

Jonathan wet a few paper towels and pressed them to the bloody scrape on his leg. He was going to have some serious work ahead of him, disinfecting that later.

Bent over, he couldn't help noticing how frayed the hems were, and how short. He'd thought he was lucky to find a pair of pants that fit his waist, but of course they couldn't accommodate his height, too. Of course not.

_Did you see what he was wearing?_

He straightened when he heard a knock at the door, and Megan's voice.

"Hey, um, guy? Jonathan, right?"

"Scarecrow." It came out harsher than he'd intended. She was quiet for a moment. Then:

"Okay, Scarecrow. You might as well call me Bug-Eyes. Everyone else will, by Monday."

Bug-Eyes. For the size of her glasses, and for the butterfly pattern she'd painted on them. Clever. But not that clever. He unlocked the door and opened it a crack.

"Butterflies aren't bugs."

"I know, they're lepidopterans. But try telling that to your friend Miranda."

Jonathan's back stiffened.

"That person is no friend of mine."

"Lucky you, then." She moved toward him. He automatically stepped back, which she took as an invitation to push open the door and enter the bathroom.

In the light, he could see that she had pulled her hair back with a yellow scarf, scrubbed her face clean of makeup, and exchanged her yellow dress for the gym clothes she must have been keeping in her locker. She'd kept her high-heeled shoes on, though.

"Wow," she said. "You're a fright."

"And you're uncommonly blunt." _Rude_, he meant, but she smiled as if he'd paid her a compliment.

"I'm just here to help you, weird boy." She thrust a blue and white canvas bag at him. He didn't take it. "I didn't know which locker was yours, so I broke into Bo's."

He didn't have a locker. It was five dollars to rent one for the year, and Jonathan hadn't been able to rub five cents together before the deadline. He'd been carrying everything with him in his backpack al day, which was much more of a strain than it had been in previous years, but maybe it would build muscle.

"If you're going to steal from someone on my behalf, I'd prefer that it was Dylan," he said.

"Yeah, well, I know Bo. He used to leave things in my locker. It's only fair that I start taking things from his."

"'Things'?" Jonathan repeated, envisioning love notes and flowers, a romance gone bad.

"Yeah, you know, the usual things. Death threats, ketchup packets, anti-Catholic religious tracts, fake love notes from a girl to trick me into coming out of the closet. I'm not even Catholic," she muttered.

"Couldn't you tell someone?" It was a trite thing to say, but written threats were better proof than bruises, especially if Briggs was fool enough to sign his name.

Megan shook her head.

"To whom should I complain? Did I tell this, who would believe me? He's a football player." She fixed him with a serious look. "Couldn't _you_ tell someone?"

Since that wasn't even worthy of a response, Jonathan took the bag. Inside was an Arlen Ghost Hawks t-shirt-an extra-extra-large with sweat-stained armpits, but much better than what he was currently wearing-a pair of gym shorts that would clearly only stay around his waist if he held them up with both hands, and some running shoes that were name brand and nearly new. The shoes, he saw at a glance, were only a little too big for him. With thick socks, he could actually wear them. Those, he would keep.

"Yeah, he's been eating his spinach," Megan said, which Jonathan presumed was a reference to Bo's size. "You can use all that to scrub your toilet when you're done with it. Or, better yet, wait a few days and sneak it back into his locker. Sprinkle some oregano on it so it looks like it's been used in a magic ritual. He thinks I'm a witch, you know."

"Dare I ask why?"

"I told him I was, obviously. I said I'd put a curse on him if he didn't leave me alone. I guess he believes in witchcraft, because he did," she added with a shrug. "At least, he stopped bothering me after he lost a couple of football games."

Jonathan couldn't help but smile at her daring. He wasn't about to try the same trick himself, though. Claiming to be a witch seemed like nothing so much as a sure way to subject himself to a trial by ordeal, and he'd been dunked in the pond too many times already.

"Well, I guess I'd better get out of here." She turned to go. Then she turned herself a full three hundred and sixty degrees to face him again with a frown. "Wait. Here." She unwound the long yellow scarf from around her head. Instead of tumbling about her shoulders in graceful waves like it was supposed to, her hair sprang out to the sides like snakes in a can.

"What's this for?" he asked.

"I put a _powerful spell of protection_ on it," she answered dramatically.

Already reaching for it, Jonathan hesitated. Megan laughed.

"I'm not _really_ a witch, weird boy. It's just a scarf. A scarf that happens to be long enough to be used as an emergency belt." She tossed it at him. He managed to catch it, barely. "See you around, Scarecrow."

He was looking at the filmy fabric in his hands when he mumbled, "So long, Bug-Eyes."


	4. Chapter 4

Trigger warnings: implied child abuse, bullying, slut shaming. Scroll to the end for more.

* * *

The Keeny farm was twelve miles from the school. Not too far to walk on a good day, but this was not a good day.

Fortunately, Jonathan had a bicycle. He'd found it by the side of the road, put out for trash pickup. It was too small for him, and had no brakes, and the chain slipped if he tried to pedal too hard, and he didn't ride very well anyway. It was still better than walking.

He entered the darkened house as quietly as he could, thankful that his granny must have already gone to bed. He didn't want to answer any questions.

He did, however, want a hot shower. But the gas had run out days ago, and they couldn't afford to replace the tanks until the first of the month, so he would have to settle for a lukewarm shower, or else a hot bath if he boiled some water and mixed it with the cool water from the tap. He didn't care for baths normally, but he would rather have the hot water if he could. He couldn't very well use the gas stove, so he brought up the electric kettle from the kitchen, vowing that one day he would live in an entirely electric house. And that he would have the money to run the air conditioner all summer and the heat all winter, and shower all night if he felt like it. And, most of all, that the house would be as far from Georgia as he could possibly get.

He filled the kettle and plugged it in, fighting the urge to just crawl into bed and never move again. He would feel better if he was clean, he knew, and he would be too sore for this in the morning. He would be lucky if he had the energy to drag himself out of bed to do his chores. But luck had nothing to do with it. He had to bring in the last of the carrots and tomatoes. He didn't have a choice, so he was just going to have to do it.

Jonathan untied the makeshift belt from around his waist and folded it up, careful not to get any blood on it. He would give it back to the girl on Monday, and after that he would never have to speak to her again. It would be nice to imagine that the two of them would go on to become the best of friends and face the terrors of the world together, but of course it could never happen. She might not be a Pretty Girl, but she had her place, and he had his. At least her place was next to a girl like Sherry.

The shorts pooled around his feet. He kicked them aside. The shoes followed, then his socks. Then the shirt, with its logo of the new mascot, hybrid of the Arlen Hawk and the Spook Hill Ghost. He was supposed to have one of those for PE, but he didn't. If he were only four sizes bigger, he could keep this one.

He flung it to the floor.

Clad only in his underwear, he took another shot at cleaning up his bloody leg. The rest of him didn't look as bad as he'd feared. Scraped and bruised quite a bit, but most of that could be covered by his clothes. If Bo and Dylan didn't go bragging, and if Megan could keep her mouth shut, then no one else would have to know anything had happened. That was lucky.

He turned the faucet to start filling the tub, still dabbing dried blood from his leg with a wad of wet toilet paper. Maybe he really was going to be all right.

Over the sound of running water, he couldn't hear the tap-tap of his great-granny's cane until she used it to thrust open the door. Jonathan snatched up the shirt from the floor and held it in front of him, as embarrassed by the bruises as he was by his nudity.

"Granny!" Couldn't she ever knock?

"Boy. You're back late. Raising hell with those hooligan friends of yours, weren't you?"

"No, ma'am." He was tired of telling her that he didn't _have_ any friends, hooligan or otherwise. But he didn't let a hint of defiance creep into his voice.

Her eyes flicked to the mirror, and she gave him a look of utter contempt. Of course she wouldn't miss the bruises on his back. He raised his chin. So she'd noticed. She didn't have to know it meant anything.

With her cane, she knocked the shirt out of his hands. He flinched as her gaze roamed over his bare chest. Her jaw firmed.

Her words were not the ones he'd expected.

"Was it those Powell boys again?"

"No, ma'am." She knew perfectly well that Bill Powell was in jail for armed robbery, and out of his life. His brother Peter was still living down the road from them, but he didn't ride the bus to school anymore, and he was in all remedial classes, so he was easy enough to avoid.

"Good," said Granny. "I won't have my great-grandson associating with that sort of riffraff. We Keenys have always been better than that."

"_We_ Keenys?" Jonathan repeated.

"Of course, you foolish boy. You call yourself Crane because I wouldn't have it said that my granddaughter didn't know the name of her child's father, but you're a Keeny to the bone."

"Oh...thank you?" He wasn't sure, but he thought this was the first time she had ever acknowledged that he was related to her.

She looked down her aristocratic nose at him, expression hard as ever.

"I suppose you'll want to sleep the day away tomorrow."

"No, ma'am. I'll be up in time to get my chores done."

"Well," she said stiffly, "I've been feeling an urge to work in the garden, and your other chores can wait until the afternoon. You may as well have a rest."

"Yes, ma'am. Thank you, Granny." He didn't know why she would do such a thing, but he wasn't going to question the rare kindness.

"Don't take this as a license for sloth in the future," she warned.

"No, Granny."

"Clean yourself up. You'll find alcohol in the cabinet." She turned to go. "_Rubbing_ alcohol," she called over her shoulder. "Don't think you can go drinking it. You'll only poison yourself."

"I wouldn't!" That wasn't fair. He wasn't an idiot, and he'd never had a drop of alcohol in his life, not that she'd believe him if he said so. Her derisive sniff told him as much.

"Just the same, boy. I'll be having a cup of hot tea in the kitchen. If you want something to drink, you'll come down and join me." She held out her hand for the kettle. Jonathan poured the hot water into the bathtub and gave it to her.

When she was gone, Jonathan eased himself into the bathtub and tried not to ponder the unprecedented conversation. He didn't want to think about it. He didn't want to think about anything. He didn't even want to move. And he didn't, not until the water had gone cold and his fingers were like prunes.

Then, in clean pajamas, with his hands and leg bandaged and still stinging from the disinfectant, Jonathan limped downstairs to the kitchen.

He'd hoped his granny would have gone to bad after all that time, but she was still up, sipping cooling tea and listening to the radio. Quietly, Jonathan took the cup she had left out for him. She liked it strong and bitter. If he had to drink hot tea, he would have preferred it with lemon, but they didn't have any, and it was not unpleasant as it was.

"I suppose you're going to to tell me that you didn't get drunk at this dance of yours."

"Of course not, Granny. I told you I don't drink."

"And you didn't engage in lewdness with some little slut like your mother."

"_No_, Granny." Always the same accusations. He shouldn't have come downstairs.

"How did you get home?"

"I..." She didn't know about the bicycle. He wasn't sure if he should tell her. She might consider it stealing. Or she might say that taking someone else's garbage was beneath a Keeny's dignity. Or she might applaud his ingenuity. Who knew? "Why do you ask?"

In answer, she turned up the radio's volume.

"..._driver is believed to have been intoxicated. Michaels and Hockett were admitted to Mercy Hospital; Hockett was pronounced dead at ten-forty-five. Dylan Hockett was the son of Mayor Alan Hockett, a freshman at Arlen High School_..."

Jonathan held his cup halfway to his mouth, forgotten. Dylan...was dead? He'd been in some terrible accident with a drunk driver, and now he was dead. But he couldn't be. He couldn't really be gone. Forever.

There was a peculiar feeling in the pit of his stomach. Laughter, he realized. A hysterical laugh was about to bubble its way out of him. He took a hasty gulp of tea. He couldn't laugh about this. That was the wrong reaction. He couldn't laugh. Only a monster would feel good about this. Granny would drag him out to the chapel, no matter that he was as big as she was now. She would try to cast out the so-called demons that made him rejoice that a boy was dead. A human being was _dead_.

Yes...but it was Dylan. He barely counted as a human being.

Correction: It _had been_ Dylan. Now it was a corpse.

His breathing was coming faster. He was going to _giggle_. He glanced at his granny, trying to quash his good spirits. But her expression was neutral.

"I take it from your distress that you knew this delinquent," she said coolly.

Distress? She thought he was going to _cry_.

"I knew him," he admitted. "But we weren't exactly close."

He felt like dancing. Maybe he shouldn't give back that scarf, after all. Maybe it was lucky.

Maybe he was going to hell for his schadenfreude.

Maybe he didn't care.

The news bulletin was still going. He returned his attention to it, trying to keep all traces of pleasure from his face.

"..._occupants of the other car have been identified as Spook Hill resident Ray Fike and his daughter, Megan. Megan Fike is currently in critical condition, and is not expected to regain consciousness_..."

Tea sloshed over the rim of his cup as he set it down with a thump. He felt as if he'd been doused with cold water. The urge to laugh was gone.

"Excuse me, Granny," he murmured. "I think I have to go...pray." He didn't notice his granny's surprise. He hadn't shown any interest in voluntary prayer since he was a child. But of course, he wasn't really going to pray. He was going to...

He found himself in his room, still with no clear idea what he was supposed to be doing. The scarf was neatly folded, precisely in the center of his bedside table. The shoes were side by side in front of the old mahogany wardrobe that had been his grandmother's. The Ghost Hawks gym bag was in the corner where he'd tossed it, with the shorts and t-shirt balled up inside. Other than that, the room was as it had always been.

He ran a finger over the scarf. It was just a scarf, of course, and he shouldn't ascribe to it attributes it couldn't have.

_A powerful blessing of protection_...

_Not expected to regain consciousness_...

Jonathan Crane believed in science, not magic. But this was his first personal experience with death. And while Megan Fike was not his friend, could never be his friend, if she died, too, it would be...a loss. She did not deserve to end her life at fourteen, even if others might.

In later years, when he looked back on that night-and he would, at odd moments down the line, no matter how far he left Arlen behind him-he would remember his shock, his youth, and all the turbulent emotions of that night. All that, he later decided, was to blame for the prayer he whispered in the dark. A prayer for Megan's safety. A prayer for Dylan to face the justice that he never had on earth.

_Keeny to the bone_...

He went to sleep.

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Trigger warning (spoiler): character death


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